


Foreplay

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 10:12:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He does not care for bodies the way they will say he does. Not even his own.  Not even Will's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foreplay

He does not care for bodies the way they will say he does. Not even his own. Narcissism, a trademark of his kind, does not catch him staring in the mirror. He makes his flesh a weapon, hones it into sharpened steel. When he wakes, he runs through push-ups, sit-ups and runs on a treadmill. Never outside. Never a gym. He prefers, in nearly all things, not to be seen. 

Exercise keeps him strong, keeps him lean and a little hungry. The first level of maintenance. Afterwards, he showers with great care under very hot water. He eliminates all natural odor, whatever wafting acrid scent that might alert fragile prey to the wolf in their midst. First soap and shampoo, then aftershave and a faint hint of cologne. He never has stubble, never looks rough. People trust polish, trust someone tucked neatly away into themselves. 

He does not gaze into the mirror once his ablutions are over. He knows very well what he will find there. Eyes don’t have power, don’t convey anything that he doesn’t want them to. He has no need to stare into them. 

He dresses in his armor, careful layers that interlock. His closet extends deep, each suit hanging like a dutiful soldier and his ties in a careful spilled spiral of color hanging from a hook in the center. 

His body is a weapon, sheathed in cotton, silk and knots. 

He does not care for Will’s body. It’s a mess of crumpled lines and wrinkles. What he does like is that Will does not care for it either. Will’s body is not a weapon. It’s a conveyance. An elderly car that sputters and burns through oil too quickly. Will’s body serves a single purpose: to keep Will’s mind alive. Will feeds it only when needed, waters it the same. Not matter what he washes with, he smells faintly of sweat and adrenaline, the sweetness of disease winding through it all. 

Hannibal can construct Will’s morning routine, not because he’s clever (though he is) or because he has spied upon it (of course he has), but because it’s so simple. Will wakes, in the middle of the night or with the dawn. He lets out his dogs, their needs far before his own. He shambles into the bathroom and leans against the tiny window when he takes his first piss of the day. Will awakened remains very much like Will asleep. He brushes his teeth in the shower and uses cheap green soap. Toothpaste and soap scum rattle around the drain together. 

Will stares into the mirror. Not narcissism, never that. How can someone with such a poor sense of self be self-involved? No. It’s the first check of the day. Am I still Will Graham? Who else stands behind my eyes this morning? Whatever the answer he finds, Will shaves afterwards. It’s not an exact process and he’ll have stubble again before the sun sets. Hair receives the most cursory of brushing, left to dry in wild curls. 

Will has his own armoring layers, underwear and undershirts, overshirts and shirts over those. They’re not effective at telegraphing safety like Hannibal’s or any good at protecting Will himself. Maybe they aren’t armor at all, but swaddling blankets protecting him from the barrage of stimulus that hurtled towards him every waking moment. 

Will’s body is certainly not a weapon. Will is not truly a hunter. Or a fisher, whatever he may believe and no matter how many lures he constructs. Will is most certainly prey. A brilliant mind moved through the world by barely adequate flesh, living in a state of perpetual fear. There are clever herbivores, gorillas for one, elephants for another, but Will is nothing like them. He is unique. 

Hannibal doesn’t want him to be anything else. Why should a predator care about another predator unless he wishes to mate? Hannibal has no interest in children. Has little interest in sex at all. He can perform, has done in the past, but its of little import. 

He assumes that Will is much the same despite his stilted courtship with Alanna. For someone who has such little regard for their flesh, sex can only be another kind of maintenance. Another false sign of normality, pasted over the warping interior. Will would have to unravel too much of himself to be naked in front of another person. 

Hannibal hasn’t been naked before another human being in years beyond counting. His body isn’t for consumption by others. Consuming belongs as an act to him alone. 

So no. He is not interested in Will’s body. No, he does not wish to have sex with him. 

Intimacy though. 

Well. 

What is sex really? Two people bare before each other, committing an act that joins them temporarily together. Hannibal can do so much better than temporarily. He can do so much better than the flesh. Flesh can be eaten. Discarded. Rot into nothing at all.

Slowly, he binds Will to him. One thin thread at a time. They will come together, clothes on and standing feet apart, and they will never sever as long as one of them lives on. Hannibal leaves marks so deep into Will’s beautiful brain that they can never be erased. 

One day, they will sit with a plastic wall between them. Who knows what side who will be on? It doesn’t matter, truly. They won’t be able to touch, but Will will still confess in a voice robbed of peace, 

“I dreamed of you last night.” 

“And what was I doing in your dream?” Hannibal has asked, will ask, will always ask. 

“We were sitting together in your office. Our chairs were too close together. You leaned in, you whispered in my ear.” 

“What did I say?” 

“You said,” has said, will say, implanted quietly and over time with the patience of a bonsai gardener, “that you were my foundation. That my house stood upon you. You said that if you shook, the walls would collapse inward and all would lie in ruin.” 

“That’s a powerful dream.” Hannibal would say, pleasure a warm curl in his stomach. 

“It means nothing.” Will most likely will lie. Or perhaps, he will surprise Hannibal. He has before. 

Perhaps he will come close enough to that too thick barrier that his breath will fog it over. Perhaps he will put his hand to the plastic and the tip of his nose will press there. Perhaps he will say, 

“It’s true.” 

Better than any orgasm, so fleeting and messy. Better than lying beside someone else’s flesh, more fit for frying pan than a bed. 

Right now though, right in this living breathing moment, Will sits with his head in his hands. He’s thinking perhaps or involved in a waking dream. 

“What are you feeling?” Hannibal asks, digging in his fingernails at the cracks of Will’s thinning defences. 

“Anger. Sadness. Regret. Indigestion.” Will’s shoulders roll back in something like a shrug. “Why? What are you feeling?” 

“Nothing.” He admits because Will won’t remember it. 

“I wish I could have nothing. Nothing sounds good right now.” 

“Close your eyes.” Hannibal leans forward in his own chair. There is nothing between them now. Not in this moment. “We can give you nothing.” 

It’s a simple hypnotic statement and Will, suggestive at the best of times, relaxes into it. This time, Hannibal does as promised. He gives Will perfect blankness. 

The only sound in the office is their measured breathing falling into tandem. The moment of true satisfaction remains far off, but for now Hannibal can relish the anticipation. Will’s gorgeous mind winds down, yet twitches the body once as if sensing Hannibal’s thoughts even in this state. 

“Rest now.” Hannibal says softly. 

For reasons he cannot justify, he crosses the space between them. He puts two fingers on the curve of Will’s knee. He can feel the heat through denim. Slowly, he slides forward until he can rest his whole hand over the slender sliver of bone that holds Will’s left leg together. 

They are joined, briefly and without consent, in the flesh. It isn’t enough. Isn’t even close. But Hannibal can wait. He can take this one tender moment and live off of it like a cactus in the desert. There will come a time when they are naked before each other. 

He closes his own eyes. What he sees there makes him smile.


End file.
